Flag 2007 Lambic Beer Focus Cantillon Brewery tour - Gueueze Faro Kriek Frambozen

Belgian Beer Tours

brewing beer belgian beer glasses chimay beer brussels hotel in main square a glass of beer lambic beer barrels

Lambic Beer Focus

"The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer"

Egyptian inscription dating 2200 BC

Legend has it that Osiris, Ancient Egyptian God of the Underworld and King of the Dead, taught brewing to humans.

The surprising fact is, compared to some contemporary Belgian beers, these ancient brews were in some ways quite sophisticated. Evidence collected by the University of Cambridge in the 1990's suggests a brew consisting of malted barley and wheat, warm water, yeast, and brewed as it would be today. Apart from missing the hops now taken for granted, this is a traditional drink we would all recognise.

In Belgium today, Lambic Beer is produced to a traditional and centuries old formula. Like the ancient beers, Lambic beer also misses one ingredient otherwise thought vital to brewing. This time however, the ingredient is not missing due to lack of availability, the ingredient is omitted due to tradition. The omitted ingredient is actually yeast!

Traditionally the Lambic wort (warm malted water ready for fermentation) consists of seventy percent malted barley and thirty percent unmalted wheat using old hops, aged three years to reduce bitterness. Yeast is still the fermenting agent, but rather than being included, natural yeasts infuse the wort causing spontaneous fermentation. The only areas where Lambic beer is produced are the forests around Brussels in the Senne Valley. The wort is left open to the air overnight in the brewery attic for one autumn evening, before being stored in wooden hogshead barrels undisturbed for two or three years, the longest fermentation period for any beer.

Straight Lambic beers are difficult to find outside the local area. Specialist café bars will serve one or two types. The cider like still beer is tapped straight from the cask into jugs. Some bars serve Lambic like a Spanish Tapas, that is with salty snack.

One traditional Lambic brewery, Cantillon, produces a rare bottled version of straight Lambic available only to its visitors. The brewery is itself a working museum to the traditions of brewing and open to the public.

Most Lambics undergo some additional processes before bottling. Something is needed to sweeten the brew and stimulate additional fermentation, giving the beer some sparkle.

Lambic sweetened with candy sugar, the same used in Trappist ales, is called Faro, and is equally difficult to find.

A more widely available Lambic is Gueuze. This is produced by combining young (fermented six months) and old (two to three years) Lambics. The mixing stimulates the mature yeasts from the old into secondary fermentation on the unfermented sugars within the young beer. The result is a sharp almost tarty beer. Some Gueuze beers may be a less traditional blend of Lambic and standard ales. Several versions of bottled Gueuze are available in the UK, with draught versions best drunk locally.

The most famous and widely available Lambics are the fruit beers, available bottled and on draught around the world. The fruits traditionally used are cherries and raspberries producing Kriek and Frambozen (Framboise in French) respectively. Sugars from the fruit activates the secondary fermentation. The best examples use the whole fruit which then forms part of the sediment found in the bottle. Other fruits are often used producing over sweet brews. As ever, the traditional way is always best.

Simon Robinson - September 2006